A New Year

My Year starts with the opening of the ski hill, not with an artificial, overblown and facile celebration on December 31. There’s a simple unexplainable joy in those first 20 feet sliding down the ramp at the end of the first ride. There’s a freedom. A whole new world opens in that single moment and becomes real. Tangible. A fundamental shift in the world.

We are skiing.

And underneath it all is the question, the nagging doubt, Do I remember how to turn? How much have I lost over the summer?

As with most of our fears, the answer is, Get over it. You’re just fine.

At the top of the Bear I ran into a gathering gang. As we stood talking, the group became larger as one person then another joined off the Bear. The consensus was Cedar Bowl. As they skated off, I ducked into Lizard. They’d been up since the first chair. I’d just arrived and irrationally believed I’d forgotten how to turn. A couple runs down the edges of Arrow and Cascade and I was telling myself, Get over it. You’re just fine.

Meta

Categories

About the Author

I live in Fernie BC, a small 100-year old town in SE BC dependent on both coal mining and tourism. It is a wild valley with grizzlies often seen right in town and deer casually wandering the streets at night.

I write. I ski. I bike. I hike. I climb. I live a daily deliberate life trying to balance the creative and the physical.